


it passes for truth (if you don’t look too close)

by bioluminesce



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Theft of Baby's Blood, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Imperials being imperials, Unhealthy Relationships, very slight canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/pseuds/bioluminesce
Summary: Every message she conveys, she sees another slice of what that asset really is in Gideon’s estimation. Power. Stability. Every rule of logic and physics and decency the Force has ever broken, laid out in a book of new law. A gleeful sense of *cheating*.
Relationships: Moff Gideon/Imperial Comms Officer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	it passes for truth (if you don’t look too close)

Oh, it’s not love. It’s proximity and rage, a crackling feedback loop Comms Officer Prudence Rees Hightower first felt when she was assigned to the light cruiser. She’s from Coruscant back when it was the capital (and how fast it became _back when_ , how fast Mas Amedda just proved the emperor was _holding this galaxy together_ ), so she adapts fast to the gray walls, narrow bunks, long drops.

She fought hand-to-hand in high-class tournaments and seedy clubs even before she joined up, so she’s the right one to adapt to the darksaber, too. Good at footwork and comms and secrets, no ISB but a spotless record, secret clearance, decent with a blaster. Loyalty to the Remnant, but not to those bureaucrats at the Imperial Future Council, or Sloane’s cowardly runaways. She wanted an Outer Rim posting, a place where she could see her progress and not be side-eyed for not having been at Alderaan.

Instead, she takes the unexpected pleasure of camaraderie when Moff Gideon comes looking for a sparring partner who won’t stab him in the back. So what she’s never seen a darksaber before? She can hit, she can move, Gideon can keep up with her, vice versa. They lock the door of the firing range behind them and fight. It’s the best place, although it was never made for this: there is no sword-fighting salle on the light cruiser. The firing range is open and quiet.

After their first bout, she sits against the wall with her elbows against her knees to catch her breath. No officer’s uniform for this: the short, black sleeves of her shirt almost brush the belted workout pants. She’s been watching Gideon’s forearms for most of the bout, never seen him sweat. The end of the stun baton she’s been using to feint taps against the floor.

“Do you know what this is?” Moff Gideon stands in front of her, staring into the saber like it’s a campfire. Weird foxfire light sparkles from the white edges.

“It’s a hull breach waiting to happen, sir.” She figures an hour of working out with it allows her some leeway. No — hopes it does. Feels a prickly, high-energy urge to try. He can remind her of her rank if he wants.

The soft laugh doesn’t reach his eyes. “This is the blade that fell through the cracks. Oh, it’s Mandalorian to start, built by a Jedi who followed two creeds. But it was always a liability to them, too. Because this weapon outside the Jedi starts an arms race wherever it goes. And that’s exactly what we need.”

Every look holds a little piece of that thing they’re after. That asset, lost and secret and only not classified to the seven rings now because Rees has to know what to look for. Every message she conveys, she sees another slice of what that thing really is in Gideon’s estimation. Power. Stability. Every rule of logic and physics and decency the Force has ever broken, laid out in a book of new law. A gleeful sense of _cheating._

All that, sliced open on a steel table.

Rees stands. She’s been watching him more than watching the saber, she knows. They’re both the silver behind a mirror, building the reflection but not the reflection itself. She wants to touch his hands, does not because of her rank as much as because of the blade crackling between them.

The blade snaps shut. “Will you join me here again?” He asks.

There’s one right answer here. “As you command, sir.”

He shakes his head. “Such a strange assignment. You must choose to take it, but you can only choose once.” He holds up the hilt. “This is an open secret. Like beskar. Most people know its reputation, but not what exactly it can do and how it is worked. You’ll learn, but you have to want to. And you have to be willing to sacrifice for it. People will _want_ to know how to use this.”

 _People will want you because of this. People will want to kill you because of this._ Rees keeps her gaze locked on Gideon’s, polite, attentive, shading into presumptuous. So much information seems to pass between them, some Imperial-acceptable pride and some loosening of the prickly camaraderie between officers.

She holds out her hand. He drops the hilt into it. It’s cold, heavy as a blaster. Rees flips it so that the activation end faces herself and smiles. “My pleasure, sir.”

* * *

The whole crew of the light cruiser feels the failure at Nevarro. How the enlisted crew handle it, Rees does not know: Lieutenant Hightower cannot share this with them. Instead, she fights more fiercely with Gideon, throwing spitting anger against his resolute calm. She can almost see the cold anger crystalizing on his skin.

The darksaber whistles past her head. Rees turns her back to the blaster targets and pulls her punches, usually. This is what works: aim for the head, the gut, the knees, and stop when the darksaber inevitably catches her swing a half-inch from the mere metal of the stun stick. Oh, she gets him sometimes; that’s the purpose of the practice, after all. Grow used to unexpected angles, fight dirty.

This time, they’re both angry and trying not to show it. Bared teeth, rank smells of sweat and fear, grunts and whimpers. Gideon catches every one of her swings, but the lieutenant is only getting more creative in her anger. Failure beats at the back of her mind.

Then the rhythm stutters. He follows through too far, the darksaber swinging wide, Gideon’s arms pulled down after it. His cheek is wide open, sweat dotting his hairline, his thin lips parted.

Prudence Rees Hightower, comms officer second and Coruscant brawler first, punches her commander in the nose. Her knuckles prickle, and a loud heartbeat pumps pride through her. Blood sheets across Gideon’s mouth. He brings the darksaber up in a wide arc that cuts the stun stick in half. A piece drops to the floor, clanging. Rees takes one calculated step back, the perfect distance outside the blade, and aims her elbow at his kidneys.

She catches a mirrored smile. Suddenly, this is more real. Suddenly, she’s having fun.

The darksaber stabs into the target painted on the wall, sinks in to the hilt. Gideon pants and smiles, close, blood dripping onto his shirt. Rees freezes between his arm and the wall, watching targets — kidneys, neck, eyes. The saber hums. The broken stick sparks. He freezes too, looking down at her. She wants to kiss him.

“Fight or dance?” She drops the _sir_ , laughing.

He leans toward her, down from the place where his hand around the saber is braced against the red-hot, melting wall. “The fight has been pleasant. I imagine the dance would be, too.”

_Fraternization. In the Remnant, who is above the Moff to punish or reward? Gideon does not even confer with other Moffs. A quarter-circle of the Outer Rim is simply his._

She’s brave with anger, not given to regret. It’s just physics. The sparks drop, the plasteel liquifies, she tucks herself against his side where she had been going to hit him and traces her thumb across his mouth instead. Blood smears against his lined face.

Gideon’s sleepy eyes close. The saber snaps off, leaving a second of loud silence before he kisses her with an anger that matches the rhythm of the fight. Energy and clarity snap through her with the taste of his blood. It’s easy to sink into returning the kiss, to turn the same energy of the fight into an embrace that presses him against the wall. When she opens her eyes she catches a glimpse of a sharp, cruel grin — he has won something, she has won something, victory at last.

The darksaber clatters to the floor. He leans his forehead against hers and holds her, and she holds him with a possessive satisfaction. The brightness of his eyes, the blood in his mouth. He softens the kiss to turn his attention to her arms instead, a rough caress against hard muscle. She glories in the idea that he has wanted to touch her, that he has curiosities in which he can indulge.When his fingers rub the back of her neck she cups his face to force him to look at her, a silent agreement before another fierce kiss.

Oh, it’s not love. This isn’t a trick, an opening waiting for a punchline, a moral lesson. Do not expect otherwise. They don’t know how to love. They know how to build and release tension, how to hurt each other in ways they want. Game pieces scattered off the board.

* * *

Some of it gets around, although the troopers are too afraid to gossip openly about officers. They say: the comms officer and Moff Gideon _understand each other_.

* * *

The Moff dismisses the doctor and calls the comms officer into the med suite without taking out the IV.

Prudence Rees Hightower stands looking at the droid, the empty white beds, anything except the two tubes of blood terminating in Gideon’s left arm. The silence becomes awkward, and both of them let it for a minute. She’s enjoying thinking about kissing his pierced arm, just watching him tethered to something strange. But it’s an uncomfortable scene, too, the two of them just standing in a medical room behind a locked door, looking at each other.

“Distasteful, isn’t it, lieutenant?” He says, finally.

The words don’t sink in. “Sir?”

“It’s Jedi blood. This is the plan. It has been all along. The asset is much easier to harvest than an older Jedi, so …” A wave of his free hand.

That mix of hatred and desire she felt for him often, felt too for the Jedi. She flicks the skin next to the injection site. “And this will give you the Force?”

He grabs her by the belt and pulls her onto his lap. Surprise and anticipation fill her, making her body feel lighter, her lungs full of sky. They steady hands on each other’s thighs. The machinery hums.

“It might,” he says. “The doctor assured me the Force is in the blood. For such a reward, it’s a small effort.”

She cups his face. “What do you feel?” The forbiddenness of the idea makes it exciting: the heretical Force, the power to disrupt what had been a natural and random selection. “Can you read my mind?”

He makes a show of trying. Settles into the chair, chews at the inside of his lip for a second, stares at her until she has to breathe down a laugh.

She’s thinking _We’re going to win._

“I think,” he says, “I can tell you another secret.”

He leans close to her ear. Besides the relationship itself, there have been other secrets: pillow questions, histories, comparisons. Where were you when …? Lesser and greater truths. Lies too, she doesn’t doubt. He’s ISB. He lies like breathing.

“If there is no other choice, you take this.” He has procured a vial from somewhere, slips it into her pocket next to the message cylinders. “You run. Crawl into a vent, find an escape pod. Bring this back to me.”

It’s a surprise. She expected anything else before an admission of possible failure. Surely he can feel the surprise, the ease and the tension, in her body. “You know we won’t need to.” The Empire dissuades mentions of failure. And she believes in it.

“In case.” He lifts her chin. “Just in case.”

The blood flows in and out of his arm. If the transfusion hurts, he isn’t showing it. The stoicism strikes her as more sad than impressive. What made it so that he didn’t even blink at small pain?

“I will.”

Oh, it’s not love. It’s the sheer-side field at the point of the darksaber, what keeps the killing energy looping. It’s lust for power, ease to cruelty, a taste for the way he savors his vicious work. It’s the comfort of a secret that could destroy him. She’s thinking about her workout the next day, she’s thinking about her last shift, she’s leaning in to touch his mouth. The blood goes in and out. He moves like he can read her mind.

* * *

Disaster has been averted. The shuttle has not crashed, the bounty hunter’s ship has been driven away. Rees keeps her posture at the comms desk perfect.

Before he leaves the bridge, Gideon squeezes her shoulder, hard. Creak of leather, the tapping together of the metal plates over his knuckles, a painful pinch. If he’s trying to convey anything beyond acknowledgement, she can’t read it in the Force.

She keeps the plan behind her back teeth, packed in like a cyanide pill, so the only sign of it is the tightness at the back of her jaw.


End file.
